


Queen's Gambit

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: heaven for the climate, but hell for the company [6]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2018-03-07 08:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3168671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Playing chess with your employer at three in the morning isn't in the letter of the contract. Lorraine's complying with the spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queen's Gambit

**Author's Note:**

> Luka beta'd this. :)

            A familiar steady tread, the click of a woman’s smart heeled shoes on the hospital linoleum, jolted Lester out of his reverie. He straightened and made a conscious effort to put his business face on – not that it really mattered if Lorraine Wickes knew he was fallible and human, but appearances had to be kept up.

 

            “Sir.” She came to a halt in front of him, set down a wooden box with the initials _HAB_ burnt into the top, and started to drag round another chair and the stained plastic coffee-table that was the best the hospital’s family waiting room had to offer.

 

            “Miss Wickes. You should go home.”

 

            “Maybe I should.” She sat down on the chair, cleared the magazines from the coffee table, removed a cloth chessboard from the wooden box and began to set out the pieces.

 

            “It’s three in the morning.”

 

            “And Lyle has at least another three hours to go in surgery.”

 

            Lester ran a hand through his hair and played two cards he knew he’d get punished for somewhere down the line: her own partner’s precarious state of health and her first name. “Lorraine, surely you’d rather –“

 

            “Niall is fast asleep,” Lorraine said calmly. Her hands did not falter as she laid out the pawns. “He’s stable and he isn’t going anywhere; I don’t need to watch him every minute of every day. I’m not Davy.”

 

            “Is she still lurking by Finn’s bed? Surely –“

 

            “She doesn’t know what the threat is and doesn’t believe the wild animal excuse,” Lorraine explained. “At least three nurses have narrowly escaped death by paranoid sailor and I almost shot her by accident when I stopped by to see Finn.”

 

            “She looms very effectively for somebody who’s only five foot six,” Lester agreed, hoping that Lorraine had been suitably distracted. Unfortunately, he let the hope into his voice, and the slight flicker of Lorraine’s eyebrows made it clear that she knew what he was up to. 

 

            “You shouldn’t be alone,” Lorraine said, returning to her point. “One of your brothers is in Canada, and you lied and told the other one you were all right and he didn’t need to come to you. Your daughter is in London. Lyle’s mother is in Tenerife.”

 

            Lester said nothing. Lorraine twitched at the corners of the chessboard, dark head bent. The chessmen shivered.

 

            “I didn’t lie,” Lester said at last.

 

            Lorraine looked up and met his eyes. “Yes, you did,” she answered, topaz eyes warm and unyielding.

 

            There was another long silence. A rook fell over, dislodging several of its fellows, and Lorraine replaced it.

           

            “You signed it, too,” she said, without looking at him, and Lester knew at once what she meant. That single sheet of paper, covered in paragraphs of immaculate handwriting, followed by the scrawls of signatures; a joke contract that said _we love them, but we’re mad to do so_ , that bore an implicit promise of support when things went wrong. Claire Bradley and Stephen Hart had got Lorraine drunk before she drafted it, but her phrasing was distinctive, and when Lorraine laid it on his desk and watched him expectantly, when he deciphered Lizzie Preston’s name and Lorraine’s and Cara Cooper’s, Stephen Hart’s and Davy Bowie’s –

 

            He had signed it. How could he have done anything else?

 

            Lester shifted in his seat and felt himself creak as if he hadn’t moved for several geological ages. “Where are the others?”

 

            “Lizzie’s bringing you breakfast,” Lorraine said. “Cara will come in at lunchtime to see you eat and give you the keys to that holiday cottage of hers. Davy will drive you over in the evening and Stephen is fetching your things down from London.”

 

            “And you?”

 

            “I’ll play chess with you.”

 

            “That’s not what I meant.”

 

            “I know.” Lorraine picked up one of the pale bishops before her and squinted at it; drew her glasses from a pocket and put them on, peered at its slightly wonky base through the glass. “I think Becker might have carved these himself. He certainly initialled this one.”

 

            “He would do. Lorraine –“

 

            “Don’t worry about me.”

 

            Lester conceded defeat, and also his own inability to make meaningful plans for Lorraine’s support right now. He slumped slightly in his chair and took comfort from the fact that Lorraine wasn’t deliberately projecting confidence and assurance, as she would have been if she were seriously unstable, and that she hadn’t mentioned Claire Bradley. She knew and liked Claire best, and would probably stay with her if she had to.

 

            He wondered if he had known what he was getting into, signing that piece of paper, and sat up straight again. “Miss Wickes?”

 

            “Yes?”

 

            “White moves first.”


End file.
